Jeter v. Langhorne

5 Gratt. 193
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedJuly 15, 1848
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 5 Gratt. 193 (Jeter v. Langhorne) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jeter v. Langhorne, 5 Gratt. 193 (Va. 1848).

Opinion

Baldwin, J.

Our law giving damages on the dissolution of injunctions has been uniformly the same, from the first enactment on the subject down to the present time.

The act of the 20th of January 1804, provides that “ Where any injunction shall be hereafter obtained, to stay the proceedings on any judgment rendered in any of the Courts of this Commonwealth, for money or to[195]*195bacco, and such injunction shall be dissolved wholly or in part, damages at the rate of ten per centum per annum from the time the injunction was awarded, until the dissolution, shall be paid to the party on whose behalf such judgment was obtained, on such sum as appears to be due, including the costs; and where any such injunction shall be depending in the District Courts of Chancery, the clerk of such Court shall, on dissolution thereof, certify to the clerk of the Court wherein the judgment was obtained, the order of dissolution, as also the time of granting and dissolving such injunction, and the clerk shall issue the execution according to the provisions of this act; and in all cases, where a forthcoming bond has been executed by the complainant in such injunction, and no judgment rendered thereupon, the Court in which execution is awarded, shall direct the said damages to be included in the judgment, which shall be in satisfaction of all interest and damages during the time aforesaid: Provided nevertheless, That where the injunction is granted in order to obtain a discovery, or any part of the judgment shall remain enjoined, the Court, wherein the injunction shall be depending, may, if it appear to them just, direct that no such damages shall be paid by the complainant, or such proportion as according to equity they deem expedient; and the clerk of the Court where the judgment was rendered, or the Court by whom execution shall be awarded, shall govern themselves accordingly.”

This enactment we find repeated verbatim in the revisal of 1819; 1 Rev. Code, p. 209, § 61; and in the act of April 1831, establishing the Circuit Superior Courts, Sup. Rev. Code, p. 152, <§> 43, it was so re-enacted, with an alteration merely as to the style of the Court.

The purpose of this law is to give damages at 10 per cent, during the time that the plaintiff at law is restrained from enforcing his judgment by process of ex[196]*196ecution ; and it embraces judgments which give no interest at all, as well as those which do give running interest; in the latter case, increasing the rate from six to 7 ° ten per centum. Accordingly we find, that by the very terras actj ^ damages are given “from the time the injunction was awarded until the dissolutionto which I can attach no other meaning than the period during which the hands of the plaintiff at law are tied, so as to prevent him from suing out execution. It contemplates an effectual, not a merely formal dissolution ; and has reference not to a mere order of Court for dissolution, but to the actual dissolution itself. It matters not, therefore, whether the fact of dissolution be accomplished by the authority of the Court which granted the injunction, or by that of some other competent tribunal: the occurrence of the fact fixes the date to which the damages are to be calculated.

This, it seems to me, is the plain meaning of the statute ; and no obscurity can be thrown over the question but by confounding the order for dissolving the injunction with its actual dissolution. A dissolution order may be suspended or set aside by the same Court which made it, and afterwards renewed in the further progress of the cause, or at the final hearing; but surely, during its suspension, or while set aside, there is no dissolution, and in the nature of things cannot be, for the injunction is in full force, and the plaintiff at law restrained from taking out his execution. And so, an appeal from a dissolution order suspends its effect and continues the injunction until the hearing in the Appellate Court; and a reversal in that Court, on the one hand, then confirms the injunction, and an affirmance, on the other, then dissolves the injunction.

It is true that the affirmance by an Appellate Court of any decree or judgment, gives it effect from the lime it was rendered ; but it is moreover true that the affirmance gives effect also to the decree or judgment during [197]*197the pendency of the appeal. Thus if a judgment be rendered for money, an appeal taken therefrom, and the judgment affirmed, the real estate aliened by the debtor between the date of the original judgment and the date of the judgment of affirmance, whether owned by him at the date of the original judgment, or acquired after-wards, is subject to the lien. M’ Clung v. Beirne, 10 Leigh 394. And so where a dissolution decree or order is appealed from and affirmed, the affirmance gives the effect which the law in such a case attaches to the judgment enjoined, of 10 per cent, damages from the granting of the injunction until its dissolution; and these damages do not stop at the date of the original decree or order of dissolution, but continue to run during its suspension by the appeal, until the ultimate dissolution by the affirmance in the Appellate Court.

If this were not so, then the enactment of the statute would fall far short of the principle upon which it is founded, to wit, compensation to the plaintiff at law, who has recovered a judgment, and is notwithstanding delayed and harassed in the collection of his money by a vexatious bill of injunction : and the evil is aggravated by the protraction of the litigation in an Appellate Court, whereby the original restraining order is in effect continued, revived or reinstated. The construction of the law contended for by the defendant in error does not comport with either its letter or its spirit; and if sanctioned would make the damages awarded depend, in a great measure, not upqn the ultimate decision of the controversy, but upon the fact whether it was correctly or erroneously decided by the Court of original jurisdiction. For if that Court should correctly decide to dissolve the' injunction, then according to that construction the affirmance in the Appellate Court would entitle the plaintiff at law only to damages until the date of the original dissolution order or decree; whereas if the Court below should erroneously continue or perpetuate [198]*198the injunction, then the Appellate Court, upon reversing that decision, and proceeding to make such order or decree as the Court below ought to have made, would dissolve the injunction, and if the cause were ready for gna¡ hearing, dismiss the bill. And in the latter case no one can doubt that the damages would run until the dissolution of the injunction by the Appellate Court. Thus the correct ultimate decision of the controversy in favour of the same party, would in the two categories be attended with different results.

The case of Wood v. Dwight, 7 John. Ch. R. 295, cited for the appellee, was simply this: An injunction had been granted to stay execution at law, which was afterwards dissolved, and the plaintiff in equity filed an arbitrary appeal from the order of dissolution ; and the question was whether the plaintiff at law was at liberty to proceed with his execution, notwithstanding the appeal.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Bailey v. McCormick
22 W. Va. 95 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1883)
State ex rel. Mason v. Harper's Ferry Bridge Co.
16 W. Va. 864 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1879)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
5 Gratt. 193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jeter-v-langhorne-va-1848.